Government-induced migrant worker crisis intensifies exploitation

By
Mike Treen
-
31
855

The government has announced a series of changes that will only intensify the crisis around migrant worker exploitation.

The government has allowed a significant reduction in approvals for permanent residency from the long-term guidance number of around 45,000 annually to only 35,000.
At the same time, there has been a continuing boost to the number of people allowed to come and work on temporary work (170,000) or student visas (100,000) to over 270,000 a year with a similar number here at any one time. This is up 50% on numbers just a decade ago.
A large percentage of those temporary visa holders are also held in a form of bondage because they are not allowed to change employer.
The end result is that someone needs to earn over $100,000 a year to be able to access the permanent residency. This wage level was imposed by stealth rather than officially alter the points required because the government can’t agree on the new numbers.
There have been huge delays in permanent residency applications. Successful candidates are left waiting for a year and charged tens of thousands of dollars in fees. this is on top of whatever may have been spent on tertiary courses to earn points towards a residence and subsidise the entire tertiary sector with around 20% of their income.
Many workers came here as students and have spent years of their lives and tens of thousands of dollars with the expectation that they would qualify for residency if they got particular qualifications or particular income levels. After they get here the rules and targets they need to achieve have been changed on them again and again.
Now the level is so high that very few people can qualify – even under the skilled worker category. The stupid thing is that even teachers and nurses don’t qualify when they were brought here on the implied promise that they would.
This policy has also meant that many workers deemed to have lesser skills (determined because they are paid less than $25 an hour) will not be able to renew visas after three years.
This also means that those workers who have been here up to a decade (or more in some cases) and were able to renew their visas again and again because they could show they were needed will now be kicked out when their visas expire. Most of the ones in this category have partners and children here. Many of the children were born here and know no other life that of New Zealand. And since 2006 that child is not eligible for citizenship by right of birth, unlike many other countries.
This is a cruel and heartless policy. There will be protests up and down New Zealand when these established and integrated families whose skills are still needed are told to leave – as there should be.
We need a pathway to residency for this group. The previous National Government proposed a solution for their mates in the dairy industry that anyone who had been working here five years or more could qualify to stay permanently. That policy should be applied to everyone.
Another consequence of this government policy will be a huge leap in the numb er of people become so-called “overstayers” as many try to stay and work as long as they can to try to earn as much as they can before they ultimately have to leave. A new layer of even more vulnerable and exploitable labour will have been created.
The labour movement will have to extend the hand of solidarity and refuse to go along with the inevitable demonisation that will follow.
Any worker brought to New Zealand under these systems designed to make them a vulnerable source of cheap labour should be given full legal rights of any worker in New Zealand, including the right to change employer at any time.
The so-called skills-based system is racist and elitist. It encourages fraud and deceit. If we need truck drivers and carpenters then people in those jobs should be able to access permanent residency with full rights associated with that.

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31 COMMENTS

  2. yeah nah not buying what you are proposing….anyway here’s a glimpse into the near future. Boats rocking up from the islands full of climate refugees….what then??

      • Well, 100 of them
        https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/australianz/new-zealand-creates-special-refugee-visa-for-pacific-islanders-affected-by-climate

        Virtue signalling, when doing sweat fuck all to prevent climate change. Industry doesn’t like it, apparently. Jobs might go (well there are hundreds of thousands of temp work permits that seem to be given out per year due to our worker shortage).

        100 Climate change refugee places is a bit like the Maui dolphin, less than 100 left and could have been prevented by a bit more rigour in terms of protecting their habitat?

        Again industry is more important than long term survival. Our governments stance is all for pro fishing SELF regulation (no cameras on fishing boats and we can’t upset the trawlers by moving them out further or stopping pirates,) cheers Talleys for that donation to ALL major political parties in NZ. (Funny we only hear about one of them in the media).

        • So apparently Rio Tinto who gets their electricity at cost and able to store dangerous toxic waste nearby, might leave NZ costing 1000 jobs (after their taxpayer 30 million bonus in 2013 ran out) and our government and power companies need to save the jobs by giving the Aussie billion dollar global business that produces some of the world’s purest aluminium, money from the hands of NZ’s most hard up and has increased the cost of power 10% since 2013 to everyone else living in NZ.

          Meanwhile the neoliberals are braying that they can’t get anyone to fill jobs in the South Island and the temp permits are needed as they can’t get labour in the provinces.

          Which is it? There are not enough jobs in the South Island, or too many jobs so they need to fill them with migrant labour?

          Labour used to be something that industry were supposed to plan for, not a gravy train holding the government to ransom again and again and has become a rort for business controlling government and receiving taxes and cheap deals they should not be getting.

  3. Stop the rise of wage theft by lowering of wages for people in NZ – this is party because of a u turn by unions on this issue – in 2016 they thought this

    MUST READ: Migration, chefs and essential skills
    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/08/07/must-read-migration-chefs-and-essential-skills/

    Now they are lobbying government to give more concessions to migrants on temp permits which indirectly has the effect to encourage more wage theft to their employers, instead of making the employers pay better wages, have better conditions and employ local people and train them and see workers as an essential part of their industry not a replaceable cog in the wheel.

    People are in poverty because wages in real terms are falling due to neoliberal rise in temp permits for bogus jobs and industries, which are a Ponzi. They then compete with other local businesses who can’t compete with zero wages of their competitors! 93% of chorus workers earned less than the minimum wages. I wonder why they can’t get locals to do the work!!!!!

    The highly profitable supermarkets can laugh in workers faces and offer a 0% pay rise when the governments and unions are advocating bringing in more migrant labour and the unions are now in effect on their side by wanting more migrant workers staying in NZ. The prize of permanent residency is being able to claim benefits after 2 years of work in NZ, and compete with our own working poor. Win win for capitalism!

    Essentially anyone who is on a low wage is subsidised in NZ due to government top ups they access like WFF and accommodation benefit. So instead of paying for hospitals our taxes, help supermarket owners and horticulture pay wages below living amounts as more low waged future beneficiaries are encouraged to our shores and more brain drain occurs. With this situation becoming the norm, our economy has no high paid jobs to keep smart, ethical people here.

    Temp permit routs are also supporting sunset polluting or socially harmful industries like fast food.

    Routs are taking tax money to subsidise poor future of work businesses, while not investing in the highly paid industries in NZ. Increasingly there is a glass ceiling for people in NZ, whether they be young, middle aged or older, as job opportunities are getting worse and worse, students intern for free, ‘whistle blowers’ and experienced workers are made redundant.

    Part of this is also how industry is run with zero interest in workers and long term sustainability. One minute for example, you hear lobbyists saying they can’t get forestry workers, the next minute (China coughs) and forestry workers are all redundant. Likewise trucking/bus worker conditions are getting worse and worse, and surprise surprise, they can’t retain decent people.

    Where are the unions? Asking for more temp work permits and making those people permanent resident is a bonus when they don’t come from a country that has a welfare state! Of course they want to come here.

    But NZ does not have the houses, roads, infrastructure, water and so forth to keep the temp visa and permanent residency rout going as it’s a Ponzi on borrowed time.

    Time to look after those in NZ in poverty by stopping the demand.

    And unions the a long look as why their direction has changed in as little as 3 years and by doing that conditions for many are much worse such as jobseeker, emergency benefits, food parcels and so forth.

      • NZ should move to a cooperative business economy with workers having first right to take over any failing company.

        “The evidence that co-operative enterprises and worker-owned companies can produce far better results is compelling,” he will say. “Twice as many co-operatives survive the crucial first five years as other businesses. And worker-owned enterprises offer a clear productivity advantage.”

        By giving people a stake in the companies they work for and spreading the ownership of those companies, we can start to transform corporate New Zealand into a democratically managed workplace..

        https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/09/co-operative-party-policies-distinct-labour-100-anniversary

        • NZ should move to a cooperative business economy with workers having first right to take over any failing company.

          Yes. Absolutely.

        • But do the workers have access to funding to keep the company afloat, to satisfy creditors they can pay the bills that enable raw materials and services to be delivered that maintains production, whilst assuring the customers that there is enough capital to make and deliver the products ordered.

          All sounds good utill you ask the staff to contribute funds.

          • If people can’t afford to pay rent and the fastest growing group in poverty are Pakeha homeowners who have wage jobs and kids, seems like, they may not have the spare cash, as they already are one pay cheque from homelessness.

            Would be better to have large redundancy payments so that restructuring which is mostly used to lower wages and get rid of whistleblowers and people the company don’t like, becomes a big cost to discourage redundancy.

            Deport those stealing wages who are not citizens and take citizenship away if the person has just got it on a lie about good character and later found to be stealing wages or up to no good. Even when they escape NZ law, their kids can probably still claim residency based on their crook parents easily won citizenship or residency here. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12271022 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12005146

            Bigger fines to businesses if they are caught underpaying with penalties.

            If a restaurant chain for example is selling jobs @ 30,000 a pop plus underpaying, and has 100 employees that’s 3,000,000 a year in profit just from selling the jobs as well as the underpaying of their business, and they only get a $40k fine when one person complains is laughable. The entire company should be under investigation and banned from hiring migrant labour for 25 years. If their entire strategy of business is about migrant labour, what does that say about the legitimacy of their business going forward and the social costs to NZ which are colossal from this widespread, increasing practise?

            • Interesting. So the worker who has the ability to place funds into the business (becomes a shareholder) will get a return dividend (as they should) but the worker who does not have the ability to put in any funds is no better off. How does he become a shareholder or is he just a worker with a different boss?

              Or does the worker without the ability to contributing towards the financial well being of the company get equal dividends?

              Cant see many workers putting their savings on the line if there is no need to with equal dividends being paid, irrespective of financial input.

              • No not a shareholder Gerrit but gains the same dividend from profits that all other workers do plus a small fixed interest on money loaned to the cooperative, and this gives rights to be involved with administrative financial decisions.
                All worker are involved in broader decisions on production and that gives direct incentive for efficiencies and work satisfaction.
                Its a well developed model with spectacular results. Community outcomes that result from cooperative activity are supported responsibly such as environmental and social impacts.

                Far superior to corporate shareholder maximised profit without responsibility for the wider consequences.
                There are many models and variation mainly following these principles.

                https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2016/07/05/the-italian-place-where-co-ops-drive-the-economy-and-most-people-are-members/

                Large cooperatives like Fonterra have morphed into quasi corporation with persistent moves to privatise under CEOs and board members from the corporate section who appear to have a mission resisted by most members.
                Corruption is ever possible and must be resisted vigorously.

                The benefits and understanding of community owned and driven by structured participation cooperative enterprises should be widely publicised and understood.
                The Basque Country’s Mondragon district has run highly successful cooperatives

  4. For those stuck in the Gig economy in New Zealand the future looks increasingly bleak. For many years governments of both shades denied the idea was to reduce wages and conditions. Finally we get the admission that NZ is a low wage economy. Now we seem to have introduced policies to speed up this transition. In the absence of a proper economic or industrial policy this Ponzi scheme to create growth through immigration is the only game in town. Junior management and intermediate level IT roles are now paying less than $25 per hour. The geniuses cant work out why the polytechs are empty. Why waste three years studying when you will be on minimum wage? They are waking up to this in Australia too: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/30/new-underclass-labor-warns-on-australias-reliance-on-short-term-migration

    • +1 Alan, what’s worse, is that the media/commentators only ever report one side of it, aka the exploitation of the migrants – there’s no mention of the exploitation of the local workers going down into poverty wages and conditions with them.

      The unions used to argue against local worker exploitation, but no longer, they are with the MSM, government and everyone else in some sort of echo chamber of only thinking of workers as migrant workers and that is all they talk about these days.

      The majority of workers are not even being thought about in terms of higher wages and conditions. Even now only minimum wages are on the government agenda. The many ballooning industries, whose wages are, in real terms falling in NZ and getting less secure, are not even on the radar.

      Again like the climate change argument, it is stopping progress by bypassing the message. So instead of governments having a big push to improve wage wealth. power interests make work into a separate category, to create a side argument that can’t go anywhere aka there are billions of migrant workers some like the Uighurs are detained, where do you start and it certainly isn’t at home, either for China, India, Philippines or the US, OZ or NZ.

      By taking exceptionally exploited workers and then making them less exploited workers in other countries, while making the local western workers more exploited and being easily replaced in the workforce is a western worker exploitation trend, and every statistic is screaming about the practice.

      Trump won, because he saw a way to exploit that. Democrats/Labor are losing around the world, because the penny has not dropped and they are still only worried about “migrant exploitation” in their own countries while putting the knife into their local workers interests using immigration, and not saying boo about worker exploitation in the migrants home countries or having much interest in campaigning to clean that up.

      In fact it’s taken it off the agenda.

  5. Mike (and anyone else that gives a shit about people being exploited)

    Cast your mind back a few years – for most politicians and bureaucrats, what seems like yesterday, but for teens and and early 20s being exploited, half a lifetime.

    Back in 2013 when the Ministry for Everything was being created and its organisational culture established, its priorities and attitudes set
    – Shane Jones was referring to its neoliberal-minded, $500k per annum CEO as “Kaiser Smol”, and oh how that was going to change
    – Labour was suggesting he was behaving like an Emperor and the place was “unweidly”
    – On its own website, MBIE was encouraging all and sundry to become ‘Immigration Advisors’ – because presumably a vertically integrated business of shitty PTEs or labour hire companies, or security firms was more “efficient and effective”.
    – MBIE officials flooding select committees showing Yes Ministers just who is boss

    Then you inch forward bit by bit as fuckup after fuckup kept happening across all its ‘bizzniss’ units, and not much scrutiny was given to obvious fraudsters and charlatans. Everything including, but not limited to

    – Shitty steel being used on motorway construction
    – Iain Lees-Galloway saying visa fraud had become “endemic” putting a strain on resources
    – people trying to report cases of exploitation being met with disinterest and condescension, or being told they only had the capability to investigate systemic problems (not that they were motivated much to do so)
    – corporate style cost-cutting measures locally and globally such as shutting down a presence in places locally and then globally
    – and then shortly before the last election, a Chief in the Labour Inspectorate assuring us on RNZ there were enough Labour Inspectors to cover all this “endemic” exploitation
    – high staff turnover (up to 40% in places)
    – ex staffers reporting that it was a toxic working environment with a lot of good people hampered by power tripping, attitudinally authoritarian, sometimes racist managerialists, and even specific targeting of an ethnic demographic

    2017, things would change – there would be a transformation and kindness would reign. And NZFirst being opposed to the neo-liberal corporatist bureaucracies would be a part of it as a coalition partner.

    Instead,
    – Things would actually worsen and become even more entrenched, although superficially, some things would appear to be dealt with
    – demographic spreadsheets would be deemed a no-no, although their intent and purpose would live on
    – Overtly racist employees could be ‘managed’ out, although some of their colleagues that said nothing and pretended it wasn’t a problem caould carry on up the Kyber
    – Minister(s) would discover that a Ministry for Everything was actually quite convenient no matter how dysfunctional its senior ranks were or had become.
    – Despite having committed to wanting to hear from people ‘at the coalface’ (such as legit Immigration lawyers, people dealing with cases of exploitation and fraud, workers rights advocates, ex MBIE employees with no axes to grind, investigatice journalists, etc.), far easier to have some policy “pieces of work” done by MBIE “in this space” and pretend various stakeholders have been listened to.
    – If necessary, have MBIE commission a QC report that recommends a Minister abrogate his responsibility and dress it up as distancing himself from the perception of interference. (Actually, in the interests of cost effectiveness, we could probably just do away with Ministers and a parliament and even elections)
    – Wehereas a bit of tinkering by a previous government, such as upping an IELTS standard would mean bugger all meaningful change other than to further penalise immigration policy’s victims, now we could do something even smarter and kinder – like basing it on income levels. (Even worse an option in many cases so that many of the people we actually need will never meet the criteria)
    And being really clever, where an IELTS level doesn’t seem to be work – why not just change to a different system of measurement!

    Never mind though Mike eh? Come 2021, it’ll all be different.

  6. many of the exploiters are themselves migrants. Even if they have become NZ citizens surely they have to abide by the law and be of good character. When caught these people should be fined heavily and made to leave the country.

    • Fuck me Trevor! We actually agree on something for once. Maybe I should go and lie down…

      I’d go further than “heavy fines”, although that would be a great start. I’d like to see all of the assets stripped from these scumbags via the Criminal Assets Recovery Act, just like we do with meth importers and sellers. And then deport the offenders forthwith. I’m guessing this type of offending would drop to zero in no time at all.

      • +1 Trevor Sennitt + simonm

        (Wonder if the woke agree, because I’m not hearing any wokie commentators agreeing they want real penalties to the exploiters, aka hundreds of thousands of $ for migrant exploitation and remove those doing it, permanently from NZ).

        • Whether or not the woke agree, you hopefully have heard real penalties for exploiters – including removal of residency (they’re obviously of a bad character).
          And for citizens (often with dual citizenship), some really severe penalties.
          But remember, ‘this is “us”‘ who’ve allowed it all to happen and become normalised – or at least a few politicians and public servants on our behalf without consulting “us”
          We’re actually fooling ourselves if we think we’re any better than what you see on some of those ILO ads on Aljazeera AND we continue to enable it – because we’re supposedly such a nice lil ole nayshun that punches above its weight. There’s money to be made, tickets to clip, and managerialist corporate senior public servant careers to preserve.

          • oops – something got truncated: should read:

            Whether or not the woke agree, you hopefully have heard real penalties for exploiters – including removal of residency (they’re obviously of a bad character) [being sought by various advocates for the exploited].

    • They are getting fined Trev but they aren’t getting deported when they should be. Instead we let them stay so they can carry on with there crooked ways and exploit more people and our system. Actually the richer they are the more chance you have of getting of lightly. This makes a mockery of our so called justice system that is suppose to treat people fairly. What a load of bullshit we are not equal and the legal/justice system is not fair and it never will be. Money talks and it always will.

      • +1 Michelle, but they are mostly not caught, because the migrants are in on the scam in the end and they are both relying on it continuing to permanent residency in NZ. To stop it, they need to stop the migrants entering the visa scam in their now countries and getting the easy to get NZ visas which are now an international scam. They should only be processed in NZ and big charges for it! Once students finish their studies here, they should go back, not 3 years left in NZ to find a fake job, have kids here and bring their elderly parents over to ‘visit’ which is another scam point.

    • Actually, ‘many’ is not too unreasonable -but all part of the neo-lib capture.
      If you look at the Masala arsholes – you’d see that it wasn’t an instance involving a couple, but a band of arseholes in cahoots, and even then, one or two have escaped unscathed by the skin of their teeth.
      That little band of merry men with little dicks who resorted to bashing people up should have asked themselves what Nanak would have thought before they started it all. He’s currently rolling in his grave btw.)
      So the ratio of exploiters to the exploited is probably about the same across ethnic groups, and sorry to say, amongs Koiwois – those like Shane, with Te Tiriti flowing though their blood (and incidentally, not just living in two worlds, but one or two more – kinda like a Planet Key), and European Zullners.

  7. Very valid points raised, Mike Treen.

    …..this has not much to do with ‘kindness’, has it?

    The way how migration issues are settled is both indication and substance for the level of existing adaption capacity on other complex matters in a society, certainly in the context of climate resilience and transformational change.

    Danger.

    Without unity in diversity, reflection and emancipation through recognizing individual identity and class consciousness, the matter may most probably unravel into friction, controversy, fight between ‘local’ versus ‘foreign’ labour and capital.

    The tested solution for this is: solidarity.
    More spiritually engaged friends may also call it: brother and sisterhood.

    https://vimeo.com/394391201

    Believe it or not. This is an essential adaptation and mitigation skill. Future will show.

  8. The costs charged in fees and the applicants applications they have to provide to NZI is no different to the scam run by the scamsters who they accuse that operate as the temporary and residency immigration agents on and offshore! Effectively, NZI is doing the exact same thing! Charging fees without any obligation to deliver anything with no commitment to deliver within the required time limits set by the applicant visa/residency status! By definition, that is a scam straight out of Bernie Madoff’s book!

    Im sure thats a crime under the NZ Crimes Act!

  9. “The costs charged in fees and the applicants applications they have to provide to NZI is no different to the scam run by the scamsters …………….”
    Well that’s an issue in and of itself too.
    Natural justice would have it that any Section 61 appeal ( and there were many ) that costs should be awarded appropriately.
    Then there’s all the applicant fees collected where decisions have been delayed despite promises made over processing times.

    llet it all play out, but just like other issues (unrelated to immigration), I’m not yet sure Labour realise just how widespread the angst and frustration is and how close it will be to the possibility of their being turfed out in 2020.
    But if so, shudda cudda wudda. Like I keep harping, things will probably have to get worse before they get better – and you know ……….. Rome wasn’t built in a day (in this space going forward).

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